Taylor tapped as manager

No other finalists interviewed for job

The Amarillo City Commission on Tuesday appointed Alan Taylor the 13th city manager. Although the city received 20 applications for the job, the commission reached its decision without interviewing anyone but Taylor, who served as assistant city manager for 17 years and interim city manager the past two months.

The commission's reason for its choice: It already had the right person for the job. Furthermore, the best person to conduct the city manager search also was working for the city, they said.

Mayor Trent Sisemore during Tuesday's meeting again justified the commission's choice not to contract a professional search firm, which could have cost $50,000 to $100,000.

"That seemed to be a subject that I really didn't think we needed to do because we had someone very good in place," Sisemore said. "Did that mean we didn't need to do a search? Absolutely not. Through our human resources director, Jim Parrish, we did a search that cost the city very little."

The city spent less than $1,000 advertising the position, said Parrish, who credited his staff and the commission with helping him conduct a successful search.

Sisemore's comments reiterated the commission's position all along that the city could rely on its own resources to produce a field of top-notch candidates.

The city received applications from 20 candidates in eight states. After naming Taylor, the commission released names of three finalists: Bernice Duletski, deputy city manager of Arvada, Colo.; Lee Evett, city manager of Pueblo, Colo.; and Curtis Snow, former city manager of Palestine.

Two other potential finalists - one from Texas and one from Tennessee - withdrew their candidacies when informed that their names would be publicized, Sisemore said.

Aspects of the search surprised at least one of the finalists, as well as Taylor's predecessor, John Ward.

Ward, who left the city in July to become chief executive officer of Maxor National Pharmacy Services Corp., said Tuesday he was surprised by the steps the commission took.

He said he hadn't seen a city the size of Amarillo conduct an in-house search for a city manager in 15 years.

"The type of search that was conducted is not typically done in large cities for city managers today," he said.

After Ward announced his resignation, he advised the commission to either appoint Taylor right away or hire an outside firm to conduct a search.

Ward said it wasn't his place to make a recommendation, but that he made it anyway.

Evett, 60, said Parrish informed him early last week that he was one of six finalists. After the commission's meeting Sept. 7, Parrish called Evett back to inform him that the commission decided not to interview him or the other finalists, Evett said.

"(Parrish) was very candid with me, which I appreciate," Evett said. "They decided to go with the assistant, and that's the way it goes sometimes."

Evett said 20 applications struck him as an "extremely low" number. He's applied for about 20 other positions, he said, and typically he has been one candidate of 60 to 80.

"Twenty is definitely way low. Something's funny," Evett said. "Either it's not a good community - which is not the case in this particular situation - or there is something that was widely understood or widely known."

Evett said Parrish had told him most city administrators in Texas knew that Taylor probably would get the job.

Evett said he wouldn't fault the city for wanting to promote an assistant city manager who had been in the job for so long.

Snow, 57, said Parrish had informed him Friday that he was a finalist, but he didn't know Taylor had won the job until the Globe-News contacted him Tuesday.